1. Field
This application relates generally to wireless communication and more specifically, but not exclusively, to managing neighbor relation information.
2. Introduction
A wireless communication network may be deployed over a geographical area to provide various types of services (e.g., voice, data, multimedia services, etc.) to users within that geographical area. In a typical implementation, access points (e.g., associated with one or more cells) are distributed throughout a network to provide wireless connectivity for access terminals (e.g., cell phones) that are operating within the geographical area served by the network.
In general, at a given point in time, an access terminal may be served by one of these access points. As the access terminal roams throughout this geographical area, the access terminal may move away from a serving cell and move closer to another cell. In addition, signal conditions within a given cell may change over time, whereby an access terminal may eventually be better served by another cell. To maintain access terminal connectivity under these circumstances, the access terminal may be handed-over from a serving cell to the other cell.
To facilitate these handovers and other operations, access points in a network may keep track of their neighbor access points (e.g., which may be potential targets for handover). For example, in conjunction with a handover to a neighbor access point, a serving access point may send context information that neighbor access point. To enable this context transfer, the serving access point may maintain neighbor relation information that identifies its neighbor access points and provides other information about these access points (e.g., information about the cell(s) associated with a given access point).
The neighbor relation information maintained at each access point may be managed by a centralized network management entity. For example, based on measurements conducted by system components and/or so-called “drive tests”, a system administrator may attempt to identify the cells in the vicinity of a given cell and, based on this information, update the neighbor relation information maintained at that cell. In practice, however, such centralized and/or human-based schemes may not always identify all of neighbor cells of a given cell. Moreover, such schemes may involve relatively high operational and implementation costs and complexity. Accordingly, there is a need for improved techniques for managing neighbor relation information.